Through the Burning Fire
by Anne-ElizabethHamilton
Summary: A story taking place after the events of A:TLAB Hien is not my character and I have permission to use him. There is some graphic images in here... So... Yeah


She sat on the ruined roof of her family home. Her black hair whipped around her face in the quickly fading twilight. She could still smell the smoke from the smoldering buildings still sending an inky, black smoke into the cool, fall air. She sat atop of the burned out home that she had known for many years. She was a young woman now, almost fifteen. She sat shivering in the chaos that she had created. A single snowflake fell. She cried.

A young man was walking down a narrow dirt path that had not been traveled in many months. Snow crunched under his feet. It was cold, far too cold for the month of March. There was still snow on the ground and more was expected to come. He had a message to deliver, but it was so bitterly cold and he had been walking for so very long. He made a deal with himself that he would stop in the first town that he came to. There he would try and find someone that would take him in for at least a night so that he could have a warm bed and warm food.

While he was still day dreaming about a warm meal and a crackling fire, he became surrounded by what he at first thought was a dense fog. He then began to smell it. The smell was like overcooked meat. The smell coated his body. It invaded his pores. He could taste it. He stopped in the middle of the road. From in the overgrown brush on the side of the road he heard the giggling of a young girl.

"Who is there? Show yourself!" the man said.

"Why are you coming to my village? Are you here to see Daddy?" the female voice answered.

"I am just passing through. Now show yourself!" he replied.

"Alright!" the reply was cheerful. A fifteen year old girl with long black hair stepped out of the brush. Her clothes were old and torn; there were places where it seemed they had been poorly mended. Her face was streaked with soot and her clothes were stained with ash. Her hair was tangled and dirty.

"Who are you child?"

"My name is Phoenix."

"That is an unusual name. Where is your village?"

"Follow me!" She started walking down the path, occasionally breaking her walk to skip a few feet, only to begin walking again, sometimes stopping to smell a flower. She seemed blissfully unaware of her appearance or the cuts on her feet, some of which looked slightly infected.

_"This village must be terribly poor,"_ the man thought as he watched the girl happily walking along.

It was a disaster scene. There were charred skeletons and single bones littering the ground and corpses rotting in the snow. There were piles of ash and charred wood. There had been a terrible fire here recently, but some of the bodies looked fresh. There was, what looked like, dried blood spattered onto the bark of some of the trees, at least the parts of the trees that weren't burnt.

The girl went into a little hut that was burnt horribly and looked on the verge of collapse.

"Daddy? Daddy, are you here?" she called out. A few moments later she came out. "Daddy is in here; you can come and see him!" She smiled and stepped out.

The man walked in. He had to hold onto one of the broken beams to keep his balance. He felt the stomach acid building up in his throat. He swallowed hard. Sitting in front of him was a skeletal figure, some of the flesh still clinging to the bones. Some of the bones looked charred and the white mouth was open in a silent, skeletal scream.

He stumbled out of the hut and fell to his knees into the snow, dry heaving. Phoenix was standing over him smiling. "Did you and Daddy have a nice talk?"

"Y-y-yes…" He tries to stand up, but falls back down into the snow. He looks up and sees her hand stretched out to help him. He takes her hand and gets up.

"You look hurt," he says as he looks at her feet. "Allow me to help you."

She smiles and sits down in front of him. "Thank you mister. Now it should be easier to get food for Daddy."

A few hours later, he has her cleaned up, her clothes repaired, and her cuts cleaned and bandaged. "You need to get some rest. Come on."

He takes her into one of the huts that isn't as badly burnt. "Your father said he was feeling ill and he didn't want you getting sick too. He said that the people here had gone hunting and won't be angry if you keep their house safe for the night."

She nods and happily lays down on the bed that he had set up for her. "Here, drink this, Phoenix. You will be able to sleep well tonight because of this tea," he says as he hands her a steaming cup.

She happily takes the cup and drinks it. "Mister, what is your name?"

"Hien Okabi. Now get some sleep child," he replies, softly brushing her hair out of her eyes.

"Good night Hien Okabi," she says with a yawn. She quickly drifts off to sleep.

The next morning, Phoenix walks out of the hut and sees Hien making food in the center of the ruined village. He looked a little green. _"This smell is awful. It is just getting worse every day I stay,"_ he thinks unhappily.

"Good morning Hien Okabi!" She smiles and runs over to him.

"Phoenix, I want you to come with me to where I live. I have spoken to your father and he said that it would be a wonderful idea. So what do you say, would you like to come with me?"


End file.
